Moscow’s Regina Gallery closes its London venue

Regina London opened in April 2010 with a personal exhibition of Semyon Faibisovich, and its final exhibition will take place in early April 2013. Source: Courtesy of Regina Gallery

Vladimir Ovcharenko, the owner of one of Moscow’s oldest and most successful art galleries, is shutting down his London gallery this spring. Ovcharenko, who has actively promoted Russian and Ukrainian artists in the past, now intends to focus on promoting modern art in Russia.

Regina London, the
British branch of Moscow’s Regina Gallery, will close this spring, as owner
Vladimir Ovcharenko plans to shift his focus to Russian art.

“The reason why
the gallery will be closed is the focus on Russian art and its enormous
potential,” Ovcharenko told RIA Novosti.

Regina London opened
in April 2010 with a personal exhibition of Semyon Faibisovich, and its final
exhibition will take place in early April 2013.

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Ovcharenko has
actively promoted Russian and Ukrainian artists during the three years that the
London gallery has been in operation, featuring artists such asViktor
Pivovarov, Sergey Bratkov, Pavel Pepperstein, Alexey Kallima, Oleg Kulik, and
many more.

Ovcharenko has
stated that, when he opened the gallery in London, he was not only thinking
about how to attract customers; he was also thinking about ways to help artists
develop. At Regina London, artists received the chance to have two exhibitions
per year, instead of one, and their work was seen by curators and various other
important figures in the art world.

“We have an
excellent roster of artists, although we are not trying to represent Russian
art as a whole — we have no such ambition. But creating a buzz around Russian
art will only benefit it,” Ovcharenko told Kommersant in 2010, in an interview prior to the gallery’s
opening.

“We have a duty to
explore new customers and keep working with the customers we already have.
Regina Gallery is in central London, on Eastcastle Street. There are three more
British galleries on the same street. We have a better chance of having
important curators and collectors visit our gallery and see our artists in
London than [we do of] having them visit Moscow," Ovcharenko said at the time.

"The Russian market has
excellent prospects. London and Moscow are like twins, and the fact that we are
opening a gallery in London doesn’t mean that the Moscow gallery will take a
back seat. If the London experience proves successful, we will think about
further expansion,” he added.

Recently, the
gallery owner has been paying more attention to a new project of his — the
non-commercial Red October Gallery (at Moscow’s Strelka Institute), which he
created together with Guta Group. Although the gallery opened only half a year
ago, it has already hosted a number of landmark exhibitions, including displays
of works by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov.

“This [modern art]
segment is sparse, insufficiently promoted, underfinanced and gets too little
media coverage — we are behind in every aspect. We have no educational
institution to train modern artists, no auctions for modern art, few galleries
and a limited number of good artists. We don’t even have a museum to speak of.
I believe that this new site will draw some new people to modern art,” Ovcharenko
told Bolshoi Gorod magazine.

The Moscow Regina
Gallery, which is now located at Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, is one
of the oldest and most successful modern art galleries in the city. Vladimir
Ovcharenko is the only Russian gallery owner to participate in the most
important Western art fairs on a regular basis.